


Three's a Crowd

by susieboo



Category: Nevermoor Series - Jessica Townsend
Genre: (hold me), (oh god we have to wait a year for book 4), (until jess inevitably debunks this in book 4 lmao), Canon Compliant, Gen, Humor, Introspection, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot, Roommates, featuring: passive aggressive blackboard notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27317482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susieboo/pseuds/susieboo
Summary: An average morning for Dulcenia Dearborn has five problems before she even leaves her room. And that's not counting the ones named Maris and Rook.[Oneshot about Dearborn and her "roommates." Spoilers for Hollowpox lay within.]
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Three's a Crowd

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure I'd contribute any fic to this fandom... and then I met Rook. My QUEEN.
> 
> We will drag this fandom out of the shadows by the skin of our teeth, one fic at a time.

An average morning for Dulcenia Dearborn has five problems before she even leaves her room. And that's not counting the ones named Maris and Rook.

This morning is no exception. From the moment she opens her eyes, she has a feeling that this will be your typical five-problem morning, and she is, as always, correct.

Problem the first is that she wakes up a full hour before she meant to, and can't get back to sleep. This isn't strictly a bad thing, she supposes; sixty extra minutes to spend doing whatever she likes, be it lounging in the warmth of her bathtub, planning how she can terrify some first-year scholars today, or staring at the wall as she slowly allows the void of the unknown to claim her. But still. Scholar Headmistresses need their beauty sleep, and really, it is the principle of the thing. If she decides she's going to sleep in until seven, she should be allowed to sleep in until seven!

Problem the second is that when she sits up and swings her feet off her bed, she's met with the immediate chill of the cold stone floor, and her slippers are nowhere to be found. Maris, she supposes, must have moved them. In the grand scheme of things, this really shouldn't matter much, especially since she finds them on the other side of the bed soon enough, but it really is the little things that can make or break one's day. And Dulcenia's days are notoriously fragile at the best of times.

Problem the third is that she can actually hear the Whinging Woods from here. They always get fussy this time of year.

Problem the fourth is that, on the blackboard that sits on her dining table, the new one has left her a message. 

Problem the fifth is that the message reads:

_Finished off the spearmint tea last night. Sorry. I'd have gone out to get a new box, but I didn't want to. - RR_

Dulcenia groans, and sure enough, her favorite spearmint tea is nowhere to be found in the cupboard. She'll be forced to make do with lemon tea. Like a _heathen_. She wouldn't put it past the new one - Rook, as she supposes she should get used to be calling her - to finish it off on purpose, just to spite her.

No. On second thought, that's more Maris' territory. She and Maris have been in an endless war for years, and it skirts the line between playful and malicious in a way that briefly makes her wonder if this is what it's like to have a sister. Rook, to her credit, doesn't seem interested in directly antagonizing her (or talking with her at all, which is fine by her). She just... goes about her day, whatever that entails, acting as though she's the only one in here.

And that often includes eating her food and drinking her tea.

Dulcenia wants to write _Go to Hell, Rook_ in reply, but that would require acknowledging her existence, which she's so far done a pretty good job at not doing. It was Maris, of course, who broke the news to her, in her usual, blunt fashion. One of the very few things she'd admit to having in common with her was a complete unwillingness to soften the truth for anyone. And so, she had one morning woken up to a message that read:

_There's a new one in here. Rook. School of Wunder. She is exactly what the little monster needs to learn the Wretched Arts, so you are going to get a grip and get on board. If you feel the need to complain, kindly take it elsewhere. I emphatically do not care. - MM_

_PS: She's been bothering me trying to get out ever since Crow showed up, and she is every bit as annoying as you are. So seriously, Dulcenia, suck it up. - MM_

_PPS: Also there's a Sub-Nine and they've been studying the Wretched Arts for years. Alright, I think that's everything. Have a good day. - MM_

She had not had a good day, and she was pretty sure that Maris knew it.

The truth was, the second she'd learned of Rook's existence, she'd been bursting with questions. How long had Sub-Nine existed? Was Rook always in there, just waiting for a Wundersmith to show up? Did she and Maris talk about her? Is _that_ why Morrigan Crow has been giving her such odd looks lately?

All of these were questions she knew she could've left on the blackboard for Maris. But she didn't.

Dulcenia Dearborn has always had very firm ideas on what does and does not belong in her world.

Rules, dicipline, and tradition belong. Troublemakers, slackers, and whiners do not.

Hot tea and slippers left in their proper place belong. Subpar breakfasts and too-early awakenings do not.

Maris, aggravating as she is, belongs, because every school needs a Scholar Headmistress, and that includes the School of the Arcane.

Rook, and her wretched School of Wunder, does _not_.

But life has a way of inserting things into her world that have no place there, and Rook is just the latest - and most intrusive yet. Before, she would spend about half her day as herself, and the other half "inside," while Maris did... whatever. But now, she's losing more and more time, because Rook has to teach a little Wundersmith how to properly destory them all.

In a way, it was a relief to know that there was an explanation for all the lost time she'd suddenly been experiencing. But mostly, it just turns her stomach to think about. Sharing a body with Maris was no picnic, but it was the only existence she truly knew anymore, and she's gotten used to it. She thinks of it as having a roommate whom she rarely speaks to and wouldn't ever wish to have a meal with, but always pays her share of the rent on time and usually cleans up after herself, so, overall, can't complain. But Rook is a roommate whom she never sees, but may or may not be selling drugs out of her bedroom, will probably bring a pet home one of these days even though that's against building rules, and drinks. Her. Tea.

Dulcenia forces herself to take a sharp breath in, and let it out slowly. They can't usually control when the change happens, but getting riled up sometimes makes it happen. Or, she thinks it does. It's hard to be certain - so far as she knows, she's the only person like herself in all of history. But the best she can figure is that getting especially emotional or distressed weakens the lock on the door, as it were, and allows Maris to come barrelling through.

She's never turned into Rook. And she hopes she never does.

Yes, it has been a very typical five-problem morning for Dulcenia Dearborn, and she is quite certain that tomorrow will be the same. And the day after that. And the day after _that_.

From a certain perspective, it's nice that even in the insanity of Wunsoc (especially what it had been like ever since the Wundersmith showed up), there are some things she can always count on.

But from another perspective, she just wants to be able to drink her damned tea and read her damned newspaper in peace, without her "roommates" giving her grief.

 _Still,_ she thinks, _mustn't grumble. Grumbling is for first-years and Unwuns._

And with that, she finishes her tea, and prepares to take her bad mood out on some unsuspecting junior scholars. That thought, at long last, causes a genuine smile to creep across her face.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this!! If you did, you'd totally make my day with a kudos or comment. Thanks so much for looking at a little fic in a little fandom.


End file.
